SeaGL 2016 - Cutting Some Slack: Decoding IRC

SeaGL 2016

VIVI (Vicky) Brasseur
(cDvmbrasseur

1 (cDvmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

About me

VIH (Vicky) Brasseur

& @vmbrasseur
03 vmbrasseur

^ seagl2016@vmbrasseur.com

3 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

~20 years in tech, most of which involved
with open source in some way

Currently a senior software engineering
manager

■ What even is IRC?

■ The Foundations of IRC

■ Commands

■ IRC Etiquette

■ Wrap up

4 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

The content of this talk is driven by the results of a survey I conducted.
Over 200 people responded providing their suggestions for what
should be covered in an introduction to IRC.

Will not cover

■ Logging

■ Persistance

■ Bots

■ Customizations

■ Server administration

5 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Slides are already available!

http://archive.org/details/seagl 2016 -irc

6 (cDvmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

I'll be showing a bunch of commands. No need to
take notes right now, since the slides are already
available.

Just take a photo of this slide & follow along if you'd
like

I'll show this URL again at the end of the
presentation, so don't worry if you don't get it now

Please save all questions for
the end

7 (cDvmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Internet

Relay

Chat

9 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

One of the earliest realtime chat systems

Jarkko

Orkarinen

Invented in 1987
Made freely available
Spread over the world
Thanks, Jarkko!

p

10 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Intended to duplicate BBS/forum functionality, but saw
the value of IRC & focused on that instead

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in
1989, so IRC has been arund even longer than the web.

Popularity

Complete measured history

100K--

50K--

0

T -- i — i — i — i — i — i i i i i — i — i — i — i — i — i i

i- users

1111111,1 tocix users— 98966 1

* — l — ^

^ s

1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

11 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Most IRC usage hit its peak around 2004 or 2005,
with millions of users. Became very popular with video
gamers for a while (QuakeNet)

Has been on the wane since then

The Freenode IRC network— which supports hundreds
of free/open source projects— is the exception to the
rule with over 80K users and 50K channels

Criticisms

■ Arcane & opaque to learn

■ Not logged by default

■ No persistent presence by default

■ Not shiny

12 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Whenever I tell people, "Hey, ping me on IRC" they
usually come back with a litany of criticisms of the service

Benefits

■ Ubiquitous & Open to anyone with an internet
connection

■ It's lightweight with very low bandwidth
requirements

■ Loggable

■ Scriptable

■ Discoverable

■ Free (in all senses of the word)

13 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

IRC is still the most popular
real time chat option for
free/open source
collaborators and users.

14 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

If you're planning to use or participate in a free/open source
software project, you should learn at least a bit of IRC.

The elephant in the room is that at least one of the criticisms about IRC
is correct: It IS arcane and opaque to learn. But that's OK. I'm here to
help.

All you need to participate I

IRC..

■ A Network

■ A Client

■ A Nickname

■ A Channel (optional, really)

■ Oh, and an internet connection

17 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Networks

■ Collections of servers

■ Only connect to the network, not to a specific server

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niven.freenode.net

Popular FOSS IRC Networks

■ OFTC (Open & Free Technology Community)

■ Mozilla

■ irc.perl.org

■ Freenode

19 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

oftc: debian, tor, ceph, gcc...

mozilla: all mozilla projects, a lot
of Rust

perl: all Perl projects

freenode: oh so many things, incl
OpenStack

Clients

■ Very many options; A very personal choice (like text
editor)

■ Windows: mIRC

■ Linux: Irssi or weechat (usually through a screen
session)

■ 05 X: Textual

20 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Based upon that survey I did, the following are
the most popular IRC clients by desktop platform

My IRC Cllant

■ IRCCIoud: http:/irccloud.com

■ Web, Android, i05, all desktops (Electron app)

■ Seamlessly switch between devices

■ Scrollback, persistence, integration with other
services

■ Great for new IRC users & experienced alike

■ (I get no kickback here; I just really like it)

21 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Nicknames

■ AKA "nick"

■ Your IRC identity

■ Valid chars: alphanumeric, ;[]_ A {|}"\

■ Max of 9 characters. ..but not really

22 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

RFC says the max is 9, but networks support
more. It's 16 on Freenode.

Channels

■ Chatroom: only those in the channel can see/
participate in the conversation

■ Channel names typically start with a # or a ##

■ Can be hidden/private/invite-only, but typically open
to everyone

■ Examples: ftseagl, ttopensource . com,
^conservancy, ##openstack-social

23 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Convention: # is for "official" channels, ## for
more casual channels

Generally—

■ Start with a /

■ Often accept/require at least one argument

25 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

I'll give you several examples in the following
slides

Registering your nick

■ Makes sure you are always you on IRC

■ Nickserv -> nickname management service

■ /msg NickServ REGISTER password
youremail@example . com

26 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Must be using your chosen nick when you run this
command

Don't forget, the slides are already available so you can
get this command easily & don't need to note it right
now

Signing in (identifying) with
your nick

■ Not required, but nice to do

- /msg NickServ IDENTIFY nick
nickserv_pas sword

27 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Changing your nick

■ Can change your nick at any time

■ Takes effect network-wide, not just on that channel

■ /nick new_nick

■ /nick old_nick

28 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

loining (or creating) a
channel

■ / join channelname

■ Include the # or ## in the channel name

■ No channel by that name? It'll create a new one

■ /join ttseagl

29 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Leaving a channel

■ /leave channelname

■ Or, if you're in the channel, simply /leave

30 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Saying something

■ In general, just type a non-command & hit Enter

■ You can also use the / say command, but that's rare:

■ / say /nick is the command for changing
your nickname

31 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

"Doing” something

■ You can send "actions" during conversation using
the /me command

■ /me waves to the audience!

■ vmbrasseur waves to the audience!

32 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Sending a private message

■ A one on one conversation

■ Private but may be logged by either you or the other
party (or both)

■ Please ask permission before PMing someone for
the first time

■ /msg nick to start the conversation

33 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Getting more information
about people

■ The /who and /whois commands can return more
information about people

■ Limited to the information they wish to share

■ /whois vmbrasseur

34 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Marking yourself as away

■ Step away from the keyboard? Set an away status

■ /away or /away message if you want to give people
more information

■ /away again to remove the status (or /back)

35 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Those symbols before son
nicks

■ An operator (someone with authority in that
channel)

■ +: "Voiced" (not used often)

36 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Learning more

■ /help

37 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

38 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Each channel will have their own particular
culture. Don't assume they're all the same.

Generally speaking...

■ IRC is a welcoming place full of helpful people

■ As with any community, please pay attention to the
culture & mores

■ In case of jerks, please report it. Tolerance just
breeds more of them.

■ IRC is both real time & asynchronous. If you have a
question, please give several hours (or days) for an
answer.

39 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Channel culture

■ Always read the topic (/topic), all links in it, and
adhere to what those say

■ Lurk in the channel for a while to get a sense of it
before speaking

40 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Interactions

■ Mentioning a nick pings. Don't ping w/o content (aka
"naked ping").

■ If you have a question, please ask it. Don't ask for
permission to do so.

■ Large text dumps are unfriendly. Please use a
pastebin or a gist instead.

■ Changing your nick to show away status (/nick
vmbrasseur_away) makes communication difficult.
Please use / away instead.

41 (cpvmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

Writing style

■ Try not to put an @ before nicks. It's not needed and
some IRCers can be defensive about it.

■ Character limits aren't a practical concern on IRC.
Please write complete words/sentences rather than
txtspeak.

- ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING. USE IT SPARINGLY, PLEASE.

■ IRC supports ANSI colors. Just because you can do
something doesn't mean you should. ;-)

42 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

(2)0x2ba22el 1

(2D the_mc janes

aitggy / mmmpork

kragni/.

@2bithacker

(2Dwholemilk

bra in wane

lucyw*

@JackScottAU

(JD/evlag

bugZPDX

lukasa

(2)KeItounet

Chiper

bwinton

mhayden

(ZpTWoMice

Corbin

chargrill

mies__nl

@adereth

DeeHants

cinavakoshka

w

cjm

mikedoherly_c

@anti magical

EUeo

mythmon

@ara4n

F.mbolalia

clokep

nibalizer

(cphaconandccxonut

Gareth

crinkle

nightfly

@cra

GheRIveno

czajkowski

nullstream

@didtux

JayF

darkfader

operatic

@edgararout

LGnome

davek

pleia2

@iamjkeating

Morgan / notmorgan

dha

preaclion

@jasonaowen

Paul 2

dhellmann

ramak

(Sjmacdatorg

Perigrin

docaedo

sarahsharf)

@johngoulah

Pomax

downey

sergeyb

@josh_triplptt

Sarayan

w

dr/z

sergio

@jschaurna

Steven K

frew

sungo

@l_h__hacker

SvncTos

w

gi/.momathboy

tfm

@mjbrender

WOO ARC H

glasnt

trsBO

(aJmoehrenfeld

Zeeek

gnomon

t5»imonc{2

(a) nahu mshal ma n

afresh 1

grifferz

ubu

@paultag

ahu

halpychan

vilrmbm

(okjedunham

alh

igalic / meena

/.moylan-|)i

(a)robothiveirc:

alkadiene

jlmc*

/u/ak

(S) sciftfrnnec

alvare/.p

j3nnnl

@spedru

asgrim

jA2

Survey respondents! Some are Twitter handles.
Some are IRC nicks. All are wonderful for helping

Image Credits

■ Andrey Vasiliev from the Noun Project

■ Gregor Cresnar from the Noun Project

■ Mackey Guenther from the Noun Project

■ Sergey Demushkin from the Noun Project

■ Jarkko Orkarinen image: http:/sverigesradio.se/sida/
artikel.aspx?programid=185&artikel=62903A6

■ Freenode stats: http:/irc.netsplit.de/networks/
statistics. php?net=freenode

46 (cpvmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC

http://archive.org/details/seagl 2016 -

irc

■ Slides

■ Links for more information

■ Video (when available)

Tweet me feedback!

(Shimbrasseur

47 @vmbrasseur, CC-BY-NC